The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1887-06-09
Presbyterian Reunion.

The Lancaster (Pa.) Eaamner refers to
| the recent sessions of the Northern and
Southern Assemblies Of the Presbyterian
church at st. Louis and Omaha in the fol-
lowing terms. 1t, to our mind, would lie
more IN accordance with the spirit ard
purpose Of Christianity were not only the
Presbyterians but the Methodists TO come
together III organic union, and thus cease
to perpetuate the sectional feeling that
was engendered by the late civil strife and
the causes which lead to it. The Examiner
says:
1t is to be deplored that after the fore
| most and most gallant Of the men who
fought out, on both sides, the great Civil
War, have been fraterniZing cordially for
50 many years and on so many consecrated
fields, the great Presbyterian Church of
| the country should be divided into two
sectional organizations, thus perpetuating
the results of the sectional animosities
that rent American Presbyterianism, as it
rent other forms of Protestant faith, in
twain.
The proceedings OF the two great AS
sembhes of the Presbyterian church that
have been III session in st. Louis and in
Omaha for some days past, have been eX-
citing the attention OF thoughtful OBJ
servers, mainly because of the indications
that the oyertures for reunion sent them
from the Northern Presbyterans at
Omaha to the Southern PreSbyterians at
st. Louis, will prove to have been the eff
fectual beginnings of reconciliation that
will unite the Presbyterians, and will re-
store to their organization nationality
m md Y,anO In fro
mendous demands of the swiftly forming
commonwealth west of the Missouri river.
This movement toward the unifying of
the Presbyterian Church has far greater
significance as regards the future of this
country than all the other movements of
the past month, to say the least, of what
ever character. 1t is movement whose
spirit is admirably convened in the texts
referred TO by the message of the Northern
to the Southern Presbyterians, at it's close.
when it says: 'sSee Psalm cxxii., Z; John
xvii. 81" The first of which verses
reads
Peace be within thy walls. and prosperity
within thy palaces.
The second verse is as follows
That they all may be one. as thou, Father, art
in me, and l in thee, that they also may be one
in us; that the world may believe that thou
hast sent me.
The debate which preceded the sending
of this gentle and conciiatory message
brought out the strength and earnestness
of the movement for reunion. For in
stance, General Shields, representing the
Synod Of Missouri, from which the peace
proposition came originally, said that the
Presbyterians in Arkansas, Alabama and
Kentucky had adopted the same principles
and substantially the same expressions.
Prof. Cameron, of Princeton. who is a
Southerner by birth, believed that the
Southern PresbyterianS were ready for re-
union and that it will be consummated
during the year. The Rev. j ohm S. Park,
OF Kansas, who was a Confederate soldier,
was convinced that 1.-THE younger men of
the South were ready to wipe out the last
trace of sectional feeling and not allow a
few leaders to obStruct an organic re-
union" There were other expressions of
like character by men whose birth or asso-
Citations had identified them with the
South.
The steady growth of the sentiment in
favor of reunion. in the Southern Assem-
bly,, seems at least to have stimulated a
DR.. Snoot, of Texas, to an old faShioned
rabid and sectional speech, of the most
sensational character. But he was prompt
Iy lattended to by Colonel Living
stone, of Georgia, a Ruling Elder, who
told how it was that DR.. Smoot got to be
so bitter in his sectional sentiments, and
who, speaking of the cause of Presbyte-
rian reunion, said that There are men to
whose heart that cause was dearer than to
DR.. Smoot s, wl1odenied the Union, There
were men who were deeper down in slavery
who wanted it. The new South wanted it.
The new South WASH It ashamed to shake
brave brothers hand.''
The Southern men in the PRESBYTERIAN
Church who fought us can be depended en-
to put down the Southern irreconcilables
who only talked against US. The spirit
that moves for the reunion of all the divi-
ded Christian communions is in the air and
will be resistless. A Presbyterian Church
much longer divided on the old and oblite-
rated line between slavery and freedom
would be an intolerable anomaly and la-
tiOna1 scandal